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We’re peacing out ATL and moving to Florida!

It feels so weird to even type the words but yes, it is true…we’re peacing out of Atlanta and moving to Florida!

When I was growing up in Southern California, my younger brother Michael and I both said the words, “We are NEVER leaving California!” over and over again. We meant it too. Or at least I thought we did. Ha! I looooved California and I loved my childhood SO much! Like really, I had THE BEST childhood! I loved the sunshine. I loved the beach. I loved that Disneyland was thirty minutes away and well, so was the snow if I ever so desired, which I never really desired. I loved the LA Dodgers. I loved that Hawaii and Las Vegas were only a few hours away! I loved my friends. I loved my job. I loved it all!

And then off I went to Nashville, TN.

I really enjoyed Nashville too and truly loved living there. It’s such a wonderful city and some of our BFF’s are still there! Really great and amazing memories!

And then off I went to Atlanta, GA.

I loved living in Atlanta too. I lived in the city of Atlanta for 11 of my last 14 years here in Georgia. In fact, our last house…”Big Blue” as we called it, we said we would live in forever.

And then off we went to the live life in the country. A beautiful place called Serenbe.

Everyone couldn’t really figure out what THAT move was about. I couldn’t really figure out why everyone couldn’t figure it out. lol We’re only 40 minutes from the city of Atlanta. People who live a few minutes from the city sit in traffic for OVER an hour. Every day. We’ve LOVED living in the country too. The peace, tranquility, the really cool community in our neighborhood. I mean duh…Serenbe was featured on CBS This Morning twice annnnd even though I didn’t know who he was, lol, we had a Walking Dead guy as our neighbor! (Read that store here.) Our neighborhood is like something out of a movie! (No really, they filmed the Divergent movie Insurgent here.) I once again said…”I’m gonna live in Serenbe forever!”

And then we decided to move to Florida!

Say whaaaaaat???? Here’s the thing. My husband Eric grew up in Florida. My Aunt and cousins lived in Florida. We spent the last year going back and forth to Florida…Orlando more specifically because we had Walt Disney World Annual Passes for the first time. (Which was AHHHmazing…read more about that here!) annnnd one of our BFF’s and their family moved to Florida a few years ago. Plus, I love the sunshine. I love the beach. I love that Walt Disney World is like 20 minutes from our new house…Squeal! Hmmm…sounds like all of the same reasons I loved my California childhood.

People have asked us, WHY? To which we say, why NOT?! Life’s short! My husband’s company My Smart Shirt (check him out, he puts logos on stuff and does all of my swag), is opening another office in Orlando but don’t worry Atlanta peeps, he’ll still be taking care of you here. And me? Well, I can do my Coffee Convo Wednesday show, share stories and social media ANYWHERE, so why not have another family life adventure?! It really is THAT simple! Like Belle sings in Beauty and The Beast “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell!”

More specifics? We’re planning on moving sometime over the Summer after our girls are done with school. Speaking of school, we love both of their schools here, so yah…that was hard, but we’re happy that we’ve found a really wonderful new school that they’ll both start together in the Fall. Yay! I’ve even made a new mom friend at their new school who has helped us so much through this whole process! (Thanks, Amanda!) We’re building a new home in an area called Winter Garden in one of THE cutest little communities and it’s right on a ginormous lake that also has a 22 miles bike trail that runs right through our neighborhood! Who knows…maybe I’ll even start using it for running since I’m a “runner” now. Ha!

Momma Jane is, of course, coming with us and is pretty excited too! The girls are GIDDY, especially our oldest daughter Lily because she gets to change her room color from hot pink to blue. It’s the little things right?! Eric is looking forward to sharing his business with even more of an audience in Orlando. And me, I love living life BIG with my family so I’m beyond ECSTATIC for our newest adventure and not gonna lie, kind of looking forward to some possible new and exciting opportunities. Every single one of our friends has been super happy and supportive for us and of course, cannot WAIT to have a place to stay when they come visit. (aka go to Disney!) Did I mention that it’s only 20 minutes away?!

So will we be in Florida forever? I guess the lesson here is never saying never!

PS. Because we’re that dorky family who likes to dress up in costumes, we couldn’t possibly share our moving to Florida news without doing some silly photos right?! Soooo, thank you to our amazing photographer friend Andy Brophy from One Nine Images for our “peace out” photo shoot. Make-up and hair extraordinaire Linda Margarita. The Serenbe Playhouse for their awesome hippie bus backdrop from their 2013 musical Hair and of course our beautiful neighborhood of Serenbe where all of our amazing pictures here in this post (as well as all of our Christmas card pictures) have been done! Plus we couldn’t be doing this move without listing our house with our awesome real estate friends. The wonderful and amazing team at Serenbe Real Estate, Garnie, Karen, Raina, Gil and Michael as well as our longtime friend, agent and awesome human, Etan Levine from Keller Williams! Thank you in advance for helping to sell our house! #Serenbe4Life